


Maternity Clothes

by lillianmmalter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Food, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7916146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of things Peggy hates right now. Daniel Sousa isn't one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maternity Clothes

**Author's Note:**

> I fully blame this on truth_renowned for making me think about a pregnant Peggy in the same week I stumbled upon [this](http://www.elle.com/fashion/personal-style/g28423/maternity-style-evolution/) slideshow about the history of maternity wear (which didn't look nearly as bad in the 1940s as it did later on). 
> 
> Poor Peggy.

Peggy opened her closet door and sighed. Baggy tent after baggy tent formed a wall of politely colored depression in front of her. Pleats, no pleats, draping, no draping, it didn’t matter, she was sick of all of them. They all looked horrendous and she looked horrendous in them. For years the contents of Peggy’s closet had been her weapons just as much as her gun, and now they had turned into some of her worst enemies.

She hated being pregnant.

She hated her inability to sleep through the night, she hated her swollen feet and ankles, and she hated the way her condition made complete strangers think they had the right to coo over her and pat her belly. She hated the not-sly glances she kept catching her male subordinates throwing at her during the work day and being stuck behind her desk while they did. She hated the way Howard had taken to addressing her breasts and the way Colonel Phillips flinched any time it was brought to his attention that she had a body beneath her neck. She hated Jarvis’s overbearing helpfulness and Ana’s compassionate companionship and the way Angie could still wear shoes with a heel. 

But what she hated most was the guilt.

Daniel wanted at least two or three kids. Peggy agreed, when they were first married, that multiple children were ideal because she remembered growing up with Michael and how fun it was to have another person near her own age in the house. Yes, they often got on each other’s last nerve, but that was part of being a sibling, that was the price you paid for having a built-in playmate.

But having multiple kids meant being pregnant multiple times, and Peggy increasingly hated being pregnant. In fact, she never wanted to be pregnant again.

The guilt weighed heavy like a blanket around her shoulders.

It wasn’t that simple, of course. They hadn’t exactly planned for this pregnancy to happen when it did, but despite their precautions, here she was, ready to burst and not even half way through it yet. Leave it to her to gain weight like a champion mum. At five months along she already looked closer to seven or eight and she wasn’t even pregnant with twins. She dreaded the coming summer months.

Peggy absently rubbed her lower back and groaned in disgust. She didn’t think she could stand another day wearing one of those god awful pregnancy smocks.

Rather than face the inevitable, Peggy wheeled around and headed for the bedroom door, quickly regaining her balance when she almost tipped over from dizziness at the action. 

That was another thing she hated: her body’s constant betrayals. It was bad enough she was fat now, forced to wear billowing curtains of unflattering fabric anytime she was dressed, but did she really have to put up with lightheadedness and the need to pee every time the bloody wind changed direction? Even banned from the field she still had things she needed to do and her condition was not allowing her to get them done efficiently. It took a lot of work to build an agency up from nothing and she refused not to pull her own weight. Which was increasing by the day.

With a grumbling sigh, Peggy waddled out of the bedroom and downstairs to the kitchen, where she could smell something delicious on the hob. There were sausages sizzling in a frying pan and a bowl of cut, par cooked potatoes next to them waiting to be fried once the sausages were done. And there on the counter was a stack of fluffy pancakes on a plate just waiting to be eaten. She snagged one and ate it dry while she prodded at the sausages with a wooden spatula one of Daniel’s cousins made them as a wedding present. Pancakes were swiftly becoming her favorite food and Daniel knew it. He was a champion husband. 

She grabbed another one and ate that dry too.

Daniel was nowhere to be seen, but she knew he couldn’t have gone far. Sure enough, she heard a faint shuffling behind her and a pair of hands smoothed over what used to be her waist to rest over the protruding curve her belly. He was the only one she actually liked touching her belly, mostly because of the look of pure adoration and wonder she caught in his eyes when he did it. He’d smile at her and she’d feel like herself again. 

His body curled into hers strong and secure against her back and his breath tickled her neck beside her ear. She smiled and turned her head partway toward him on instinct.

“You know, I can’t serve you breakfast in bed if you’re not in bed,” he murmured. His tone was close enough to his bedroom voice that she felt a curl of desire jolt through her.

“I can’t stay in bed all day. I’ve work to do.”

“It’s Saturday. Good day for sleeping in.”

He’d be more believable if the reason she woke up in the first place wasn’t because she heard him take a call from one of his agents on the hall phone near dawn. She leaned a fraction of her weight against him, conscious of how precarious their combined ability to balance now was.

“Is that so?”

“Mm.” 

He began to place light kisses along the hinge of her jaw and down her neck as his hands smoothed over her belly. One of them reached up to cup her breast through her nightgown. Her quim pulsed and her stomach fluttered.

Peggy reached a hand back to tangle in his hair. It wouldn’t do to discourage him in any way if this was going where she thought it was. She turned off the burner on the hob in a last moment of thoughtfulness and let the spatula fall to the side with a clatter, tangling her other hand with his low on her belly. Daniel found the spot on her neck that always made her shiver and sucked on it mercilessly.

Her stomach fluttered again.

Oh, honestly, she couldn’t still be that hungry, she’d already pilfered two pancakes. Surely that should be enough to keep her energy up to spend some quality time with her husband for a few minutes.

The flutter returned, more pronounced this time, and Peggy stilled to analyze it. It was an odd feeling, now that she was actually paying attention to it, not quite like anything she’d ever felt before. It wasn't hunger. It was almost like… a goldfish swimming around inside her.

“Daniel.”

He hummed a question and continued his assault on her neck.

Damn him, he was too good at that.

She moved their tangled hands to the spot on her belly she last felt the goldfish and pressed his palm closer to her skin.

“Can you feel that?”

He stopped kissing her neck and looked at her, then looked down at their joined hands. She scratched at his scalp then dropped her hand from his hair and placed it on top of their already joined hands on her belly, increasing the pressure.

“Did you…”

Of course now that she was trying to draw attention to it the goldfish had vanished. Typical.

“I think I just felt the baby move.”

Daniel pulled away far enough to spin her around and meet her gaze full on. His smile lit up the room like the sun. His hands smoothed back over her belly, pressing gently.

“Can you still feel it?” he asked, desire of a different kind than what she had been looking forward to plain in his eyes.

Peggy cupped her hand against his cheek. “No. It stopped moving almost as soon as I realized what exactly it was.”

“He’s shy.”

“He’s a stubborn arse,” she said mulishly. Daniel had gotten it into his head that the baby would be a boy and Peggy played along most of the time because calling it “it” was starting to feel callous and wrong even when she was vexed by whatever aspect of pregnancy was annoying her most at any given moment.

Daniel grinned at her and pressed a light kiss against her lips.

“He is your kid.” 

Peggy scoffed and swatted at his arm. “He’s your kid. You’re already teaching him bad habits. Like not letting me sleep through the night.”

Daniel chuckled and maneuvered her around so she was standing near the kitchen table. “How about you sit down while I finish breakfast?”

“A multiple course masterpiece?” she said, indulging him by sitting down. Their activities from earlier were clearly not going to continue at the moment. And it did feel nice to be off her feet.

“Of course. Only makes sense with just the two of us here.” 

He smoothly went about finishing breakfast, using the countertop or the back of one of the kitchen chairs for balance any time he needed to step away from the hob. He’d have made a wonderful line cook in a different life, though his food lacked the elegant flair of Jarvis’s efforts. She preferred watching Daniel cook, though.

“I do still have to go to work today,” she said.

“And put on one of those circus tents you hate?” 

Peggy glared at the floor. Whoever thought a smock was an attractive look on anyone was an idiot. She’d seen prison garb more becoming.

“You know, Peggy, SHIELD can run without you for the weekend. Everything won’t fall apart just because you’re not there every day.”

“Colonel Phillips is there every day.”

“Colonel Phillips doesn’t have a life.”

“And what else would you suggest I do all day then? Needlepoint?”

He set the plate of pancakes down in front of her and shot her a sceptical look. “Do you even know how to do needlepoint?”

“Very badly,” she said, most of her attention on the pancakes. She snatched the top one and took a bite out of it. Daniel shook his head at her with a grin and set down the fruit compote intended to go over the pancakes. She picked it up and drizzled a little down the middle of the pancake she was holding, then folded the whole like a taco and took another bite. She missed tacos. They were difficult to find on the east coast. Jarvis refused to make her any.

Daniel mocked her with his eyebrows.

“We could relax together,” he said. “Maybe I could give you a massage.” Peggy moaned at the prospect and Daniel smirked. “If you’re very good I might even massage your feet.” Peggy closed her eyes and sighed at the prospect. The state of her feet was one of the things she most hated about being pregnant. Especially now that she couldn’t quite reach them comfortably anymore.

“I can be good.”

Daniel snorted and set down an egg casserole he produced from somewhere.

“I can!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said, setting down a plate of sausages. She seized one and bit into it, then considered it for a moment before putting it and some of the casserole inside her pancake taco and taking another bite.

“Really, Peg?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“You know, you use that excuse a lot considering how much you hate it.” He set down the bowl of potatoes, crispy and glowing golden with oil and herbs from the frying pan, and sat down next to her. She stared at him with a sickening mixture of confusion and dread roiling in her gut.

“What?” she asked dimly.

He shot her a patient look as he loaded his plate with food in the normal way, leaving the pancakes for her. “Honey, I know you hate being pregnant. You look miserable half the time and annoyed the other half. And you’re doing it anyway.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “You’re growing our baby inside you. I couldn’t be more in awe of you if I tried.”

“Daniel…”

“If this is our only kid, I’m more than okay with that. Cause he’s gonna be ours, Peg. I don’t think you get just how amazing that is.”

“What if it’s a girl?” she asked faintly.

“Then I’ll be in trouble cause she’ll be just like her mum.” His mouth curled around the last word with a small smile and her heart leapt. “Gorgeous and fierce and deadly to anyone who stands in her way. Not to mention, smart as a whip.”

“That last part would be all you.” The tears that had been welling during his speech dropped from her eyelashes and she smiled at him with a wobbly chin. She felt lighter than she had in months. “I love you, Daniel.”

“I love you too, Peg,” he said softly and leaned over to kiss her.

Just as their lips met, the goldfish came fluttering back. “Daniel!” She reared back and seized his hand, placing it over the spot.

It took a few moments, but then, “I feel it!” 

He stared at their hands on her belly with an open-mouthed smile. Her heart felt full and warm at the sight. Maybe this was what so many women meant when they blathered on about the wonders of pregnancy and children. Maybe it was this feeling of family, of connectedness with their chosen partner that they meant.

At that moment, everything seemed worth it. Which was good, because only a minute later the goldfish sent her sprinting for the loo lest she have an accident.

 _The good with the bad, Peggy,_ she told herself. _The good with the bad._

**Author's Note:**

> So, in case it wasn't clear, Peggy's a little upset with all the weight she's gained (among other things) and imagines herself to be much bigger than she actually is. While her belly is larger than many women's at five months, it's certainly not seven to eight months big. That just sounds awful so early.
> 
> Daniel's line about breakfast in bed was shamelessly stolen from Blaine Anderson because I got to that point in the story and couldn't resist. Also because I wanted it used in a slightly less ridiculous context than they used it on Glee.
> 
> The MCU wiki claims Peggy left the SSR to help found SHIELD in January of 1949, so when she thinks about having to build the agency up from scratch, that is quite literally what they're in the process of doing.
> 
> The baby feeling like a goldfish in Peggy's stomach was taken from one of the baby development websites I visited to double check my timing for her symptoms. It was such a charming turn of phrase that I simply had to borrow it.


End file.
